Living in the Land of Not Enough
Hiding in the back row behind all the other dancers, I felt safe. Far from the mirror, other bodies obstructing the view of my body, I told myself all kinds of things: you have flat feet, fat calves, and chubby cheeks. You are clumsy and ungraceful. Your legs don’t extend high enough. Your body won’t move fast enough. Not enough, not enough. You are not enough.
Ballet is meant to create illusion, a sense of limbs floating, light as a feather. But what appear as soft, smooth, delicate bodies are hard, bleeding, sweating muscles and bones held together by overworked joints. I saw my body in pieces, felt the shatter of my anatomical fragments. Every day, a different focus—scrawny arms, stiff back, legs that floundered wobbly in jumps—all parts separated from the whole. A harsh critical voice living inside my head commented on everything I did. It grew stronger as my joints became weaker, telling me to deny myself pleasure, to work harder and harder.
For ten years, I lived in this land of not enough, my body a pile of needed improvements. Not enough sometimes looked like effort, like never missing a dance class, like dedication and drive. Beneath a façade of discipline and commitment, I pushed and pounded. At 18, my body fell apart—stress fractures, muscle spasms, shin splints. Depression clouded my life like a gauzy fabric, leaving my senses dull and holes in my relationships. My mind hardwired in not enough.
How does a mind become so self-critical? Often, our harsh inner critic is an internalization of some external pressure—from the media, from society, from family, from teachers. Day in and day out, we are inundated with messages that tell us we aren’t smart enough, pretty enough, strong enough, successful enough. And we live in a society that rewards us for running on a treadmill of unattainable improvements and suggests some product that can help us achieve the perfection we long for.
One of the most primal human needs is to feel acceptance, and we are willing to whip ourselves over and over again to live up to someone else’s vision of our success. Part of befriending the inner critic is understanding its roots, recognizing that it is not the voice of our higher self, and communicating with it in a gentle way. Think of your inner critic like a scared child who wants more than anything to be loved and accepted. She screams and yells because she does not feel heard and she does not feel accepted.
The next time you are confronted with a harsh voice inside your head saying that you are not enough, try engaging with it in a kind and loving way with this 5-10 minute inquiry-based meditation (I also suggest gathering a writing utensil and something to write on):
Find a comfortable seat in a chair or on a cushion. Lengthen your spine and reach the crown of your head upward. Close your eyes and direct your gaze inward. Take a deep breath in through your nose and exhale it out through your mouth, letting your shoulders drop away from the ears. Repeat this cycle of inhale and exhale three times. On the last exhale place your hands on your heart and ask your inner critic the following questions allowing some space in between each one:
1) Dear critical voice, my fearful child, what do you want?
2) Dear critical voice, I hear you and I see you, what do you really want?
3) How would you feel if you got what you wanted?
Take another deep breath in through the nose, and exhale through the mouth letting the shoulders drop away from the ears. Slowly open your eyes and reach for your writing materials. Ask yourself the same set of questions again, pausing in between each one to give yourself time to write down any insights. Write as little or as much as you want. When you are finished, seal the practice by taking a deep breath in through your nose, and exhale it through your mouth. Put your hands on your heart and lower your chin to your chest, thanking your inner critic for communicating with you and thanking yourself for honoring what came up.